Confused with my SPL meter setup & Yamaha HTR5640

Sun

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Pants, wrong forum.

Hi,

I've just been using my new SPL meter to setup my speakers. It's a RadioShack model. I've set it to 70 on the meter and Weighting C and Response Slow. I've stuck my amp's test tones on - Yamaha HTR5640 (same as RX-V640RDS) and cranked the amp volume up to -70db.

Okay so far so good, I went through all my speakers adjusting their own volume until the meter was hitting 0 everytime. I hit a problem though, my main L&R speakers (Wharfedale 8.3's) aren't producing enough volume, the amp only allows me to go from -10 to 0 for each speaker and even at 0 it's reading as -3 on the spl meter.

What do I do now?
Cheers
Sun
 
Hi

Turn all the other speakers down. Put the main speakers on '0', the maximum adjustment. Turn the main volume up to read 80dB on the SPL meter from the two fronts.

Now gradually turn the other speakers up so as they are reading 80dB as well. If you've got this problem, I'm guessing most of them will end up considerably lower than 0.

Hope this helps / makes sense? Sorry if I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

Gary
 
It's more important that the output from each speaker is evenly matched than the fact that they are correctly set to reference level
 
I think you have the right end of the stick Gary_W although I'm not sure I do. I tried again and stuck the amp up to -80 and the SPL to 80 as well. Same thing happened, fronts just couldn't reach the 0 mark on the meter and the speakers themselves can't be turned higher than the 0 that they are on the amp anyway. So what I've done, which I think is what you were saying, was turned the amp up to -80, put the meter on 70 and then turned the L&R down individually from 0.

Anyway as a result everything is now sitting from 0 to about 1 when the amp is up at -80. Apart from the sub which fluctuates wildly with the Yamaha test tone, it bounces from about 0 to 6 regularly, not sure if there's much I can do about that.

Anyway I stuck my Heat DVD on just in normal DD mode and I was amazed at how much rear sound there was, my setup must have been seriously pants before, I feel very sad at having missed so much great audio in the past :( But very happy that it won't happen again :D

I have one question though, for me to reap the benefits of my new sound levels do I now have to listen to films at -70 or -80 or simply any volume I like? Although as Ian J has pointed out, which I now know to be right, they will at least all be (relatively) level.

Cheers
Sun
 
Sun said:
I have one question though, for me to reap the benefits of my new sound levels do I now have to listen to films at -70 or -80 or simply any volume I like?

You should listen to films at whatever level you are comfortable with. Reference level is only used for a level playing field when comparing things. Reference level is seriously loud and most systems won't get there unless serious hefty levels of distortion are involved.
 

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